Zak's supports episode shot in Arizona

We are proud to have been able to support an episode of SciGirls fearuring 4 Arizona girls and their mentor.

In this episode, Valeria and her friends take action in their Arizona community. These SciGirls partner with an industrial engineer to design a streamlined service plan for a food bank, and help high school students in need. They spent a day at Zak's examining how we have changed and improved some of our processes since we began making chocolate as a hobby at home.

SciGirls is an Emmy award-winning PBS Kids television show, website, and educational outreach program that draws on cutting-edge research about what engages girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning and careers.

So, do they ever eat mass-produced chocolate from the convenience store? Read story for answer

Chocolate-making is a lost art, Jim Elitzak says. It's also a messy one. When his wife, Maureen, with whom he co-owns Zak's Chocolate in Scottsdale, announced that she was going to start making her own chocolate, grinding beans by hand and using hair dryers to blow cocoa shells, he balked.

"I said, 'I will never do that. No, thank you,'" he remembers. Jim since has changed his mind: The couple opened Zak's Chocolate in a small Scottsdale storefront last spring. There, they create organic single-origin chocolate bars and sweets made from their own bean-to-bar chocolate. Everything is done by hand: the roasting, the separating, the melting. Even the paper each chocolate bar comes wrapped in is handmade. The business began as a hobby...click here for full article